Boston Law Department defends Trust Act in federal court, outlines FY27 budget pressures

The City of Boston's Law Department told the Ways and Means committee on April 23 that it is carrying a lean staff while defending a series of federal cases and supporting ongoing municipal operations. Corporation Counsel Michael Firestone said the department's FY27 proposed budget is about $10.9 million and that roughly $2.623 million was spent on outside counsel in FY26.

"We are defending the Trust Act in court," Sam Denning, the Law Department's chief of staff and policy, told the committee, saying the federal government is seeking to invalidate parts of the Trust Act that limit honoring federal detainer requests and restrict certain information-sharing provisions. Denning said additional briefing has been filed and the department expects a hearing at the court's discretion.

Why it matters: the outcome of federal litigation involving the Trust Act and other multi-jurisdictional actions could affect federal funding and the city's legal obligations. Firestone said the department has joined and led multi-city amicus briefs and that the department's federal work has helped preserve more than $100 million in federal grants in certain multi-jurisdictional matters.

Firestone described the department's core workload—advising nearly 80 city departments, reviewing contracts and representing the city in litigation—and said the department currently has 75 employees with nine vacancies. He said about 80% of the department's budget supports payroll while roughly 20% covers contracted legal services and technology.

On outside counsel, Firestone named the firms that received the largest FY26 shares as Stoneman Chandler, Nixon Peabody and Cahill Gordon, and said he would provide the Council with a breakdown of representations and amounts on follow-up. Councilors asked for more detail about the largest pending liabilities; Firestone said the City's largest potential exposures tend to arise from federal civil-rights and wrongful-conviction cases, which are not subject to statutory caps.

Firestone also said public-records requests have surged—he estimated roughly 10,000 requests per year—and that this growth has placed staffing and resource strain on timely compliance.

On settlement practices, Firestone told the Council the City is effectively self-insured and that annual payouts for settlements and claims have typically ranged between about $10 million and $25 million depending on case mix; some high-value civil-rights cases can skew any single year's total.

Next steps: Firestone and his team agreed to provide a follow-up with case- and firm-level detail on outside counsel spending, and to supply additional claims and property-damage data requested by councilors.